


they cannot escape this

by theElsker



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 09:10:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15191507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theElsker/pseuds/theElsker
Summary: In which the Courier breaks, and Boone follows.





	they cannot escape this

It is early enough that even the illumination on the Strip has dimmed. The hotel creaks in the quiet, and for a moment Lis pauses, her hands finding the wall to keep her upright, the cheap wallpaper crinkling under her fingertips.

In the elevator, she stares down at the tiny frays that have come loose along the edging of her old hide boots, trying to ignore the mirrored panels that mean to show her everything she has tried to forget. The light is dim here too, but shadows still dance around the scars at her temple and the ugly gash of a bullet hole in her head. The metal doors slide open, and its light crawls out across the floor and walls before being swallowed up by the darkness of the casino floor.

One step in front of the other, until her shadow no longer twists easily beside her.

At the bar, she fills a glass to the brim and knocks it back. It is sharp and heavy on the tongue, but warm and comforting in her throat. She doesn’t bother refilling the glass, her lips finding the opening of the bottle. But this time the drink snakes down her chest, and does not settle well. 

But, again, it is a strange sort of comfort.

When the bottle rolls away empty, she adjusts the pistol at her hip and the revolver strapped to her chest beneath her tunic, cold metal against the burning of her skin. Lis pulls her braid up and around her head, careful to pin the plait over the gash. When it is secure, she closes her eyes a moment, thinking on those still asleep in the floors above.

And, then, before she steps away, grabs a small bottle of  _ something, anything  _ from behind the bar _ , _ and finds a spot for it deep in her bag. 

The slots here are long dead, their tinkering when they first arrived proving futile to waking the machines. Now, it's only rows of empty metal husks and a floor full of dust, coating any remnants of its past life. Victor is absent, meddling about with a broken elevator on the top floor, and won’t appear until morning so she thinks she may have a few hours under the desert sky to swallow her regret and shake herself of any remorse. It was better for them this way.

“You leaving?”

Lis stops walking at the sound of his voice, caught somewhere between the pool tables and the slots. He materializes as a silhouette, and she waits for him to step into the faded light. When he does, it is another strange comfort - the faded red beret pulled low and the worn rifle strapped to this back. It is a sight she has seen more than herself.

“No.”

“Take me with you. I am coming.”

“Boone.”

“Don’t.”

She faces off with him in the gloom, and watches the slope of his nose and the cut of his jaw come into focus. A pain of anger slices through her, at him for always catching her in her most vulnerable moments and at herself, for already feeling the shattering of her resolve. It is a conversation they've had before, one she has lost too many times.

Boone stops so close to her it would be easy to brush against him, to find the tips of his fingers with hers or to claw at his chest until she breaks her nails and screams and screams until the whole Strip can hear her. Her mouth is dry, and she runs her tongue along the backs of her teeth as she tries to catch her breath.

He raises a hand and it ghosts across her hair. When his fingers graze the scarred skin above her ear, she shies away from him. After a moment, his arm drops back to his side.

“I thought it would be alright.” It is a trembling confession. “They said the pain would stop and the dreams and-and…” She gasps for air, and a choked sound crawls its way from her throat. “I thought it would be alright.”

“You are fool if you think it ever will be.”

Lis backs away from him. More anger and more hurt cuts a thorned pathway through her heart. A shadow of a man’s laugh in a graveyard echoes around her. He must hear it, they all must hear it. It slips into the silence and overtakes the noise. It cuts off her speech and falters her thought. 

“I want it to end...I want it to disappear...”

“It doesn’t end, and you don’t forget.” He speaks between gritted teeth, but he meets her eyes.

“Can you hear it?” Tell me you can hear it. Tell me you know what I mean.”

Here, Boone looks away, flutters his gaze above her shoulder, to his boots, down to his hands that are scarred and twisted and gnarled. “I can hear it.” This is a gruff whisper, that seems to steal from him without choice. 

She lifts a hand to her head, wishing she could grasp at whatever it was that felt so heavy, so cruel.

“ _ I _ want to disappear.”

This time he closes the gap between them, and doesn’t let her twist away when his hand comes up to rest against her neck. Boone drags her close to him, into his chest. It is a loose grip, and her cheek barely grazes the front of his shirt. She blinks, and takes a shallow breath, denying the tears that want to burst from her chest and splay upon her face. 

The hand at her neck travels to cup her face.

Then it finds her head, where the skin aches and pulses and throbs. It is the first touch since her own, since the bullet was pulled out in Goodsprings. Before the laughter began, and only the mutterings of the doctor during the surgery filled her mind.

“I need you to promise. Promise that it will be better. _ Please. _ It  _ hurts _ so much more than I thought it could, and I--”  

The laugh grows louder, filling the void between them. But his hand is a weight, anchoring her to the moment, and she breaths in the starch of his shirt as her forehead scrapes the bristles of his jaw.

“Yes.” His voice cracks on the word, and she can taste the lie that settles around her.

“I don’t...I don’t know how…”

“You don’t need to know.”

“I cannot stay, Boone. I cannot come back.”

Boone’s other hand lifts to her shoulder, pulling her back so she is forced to peer into his face. It is pinched, exhausted. She realizes that perhaps he’s been fighting his own battle alongside her, and she knows it's been a fight he's faced for much longer, so much longer.

“Ask me.”

She opens her mouth, takes a breath, feels the ringing in her ears and the fear in her heart.

“Will you come with me?”

It is only when the lights of the strip dissipate behind them and she gasps the heat of the Mojave into her lungs does she begin to cry.

But on they walk.


End file.
